1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a mobile device, and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for generating an overlay region for an application in a User Interface (UI) control.
2. Description of the Related Art
A user of a mobile device generally uses applications installed in the mobile device by a manufacturer or a seller. If desired applications are not installed in the mobile device, the user can download and install them from an external source. Applications refer to various types of application programs installed in and executed by the mobile device, such as a notebook computer, a tablet computer, a mobile phone, a smart phone, a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), an MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3) player, a PMP (Portable Multimedia Player), and a digital camera.
The application executed in the mobile device generates an overlay region for a UI relevant to the corresponding application in a UI region on a display screen and uses the generated overlay region, which is used to display various images according to the corresponding application on the screen. When a display of the mobile device is a touch screen panel display, the overlay region is used to receive an input generated by user contact of a touch screen on the overlay region.
Each application generally has one resolution, which is set by a developer of the application, as a basic resolution among various resolutions such as a WVGA (Wide Video Graphic Array), an HVGA (Half Video Graphic Array), and a WQVGA (Wide Quarter Video Graphic Array). The WVGA corresponds to 480*800 pixels, the HVGA corresponds to 320*480 pixels, and the WQVGA corresponds to 240*400 pixels. Accordingly, the applications can have different basic resolutions.
The mobile device usually has a fixed physical resolution, and should thus process an image of the overlay region in a manner suitable for displaying the image based on the fixed physical resolution. The processing of the image of the overlay region includes, but is not limited to color converting, scaling, and rotating.
In the application, a position, width, and height of the overlay region can be freely defined based on the basic resolution, i.e., within the basic resolution. For example, when the basic resolution is the WVGA, the overlay region can be defined within 480*800 pixels.
However, the image processing of the overlay region in the mobile device may have several restrictive conditions. For example, the width, height, or position of the overlay region may be limited after scaling the overlay region according to the physical resolution of the mobile device.
Such an overlay region condition may not be satisfied when an aspect ratio of the basic resolution of the application is different from an aspect ratio of the physical resolution of the mobile device or the basic resolution of the application is different from the physical resolution of the mobile device. Particularly, when the mobile device scales the overlay region generated by the application in accordance with the physical resolution of the mobile device, if the overlay region condition is not satisfied, the image processing may not be performed properly. Even if the basic resolution of the application is equal to the physical resolution of the mobile device, the image processing is not normally performed when the generated overlay region does not satisfy the overlay region condition.
Accordingly, it is difficult to develop an application, which can be mutually shared between various mobile devices having different physical resolutions among various physical resolutions. In other words, the mobile device may be unable to use an application, which cannot satisfy the overlay region condition related to the image processing of the corresponding mobile device.